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SmartPay Jieyin has been granted National Information Security
Certification from China Information Technology Security Certification
Center (CNITSEC) after passing a systematic evaluation, test and
inspection conducted by the authority. The CNITSEC is the government
authority that oversees security management, security engineering, security
technology and IT security certification responsibilities to ensure service
quality and security management throughout China. SmartPay services are
extended to merchants of mobile top-up, e-ticketing, utility bills, mobile
lottery and digital products and has been refining its secure payment
channels.

Nerino Mayer, previously with RBS Lynk’s Internet Business Unit and VeriFone has joined FL-based Sterling as the President, Dealer Solutions. During his tenure as Director of RBS Lynk’s Internet Business Unit, Mayer led the creation and establishment of the RBS Lynk eCommerce payment platform. His responsibilities included software architecture, development, deployment, sales activities and project management for the eCommerce platform. Prior to RBS Lynk, Mayer spent seven years as a Business Development Manager at Hewlett-Packard’s VeriFone division. He performed a variety of roles there, most recently for sales of eCommerce payment platforms to U.S. payment processors and international telecom and retail markets. He also spearheaded the development and entrance of VeriFone Smart Card technologies implemented in the Atlanta Olympics. Sterling Payment Technologies is an electronic payment processing provider.

For fraud prevention, Opodo travel has implemented Retail Decisions
(ReD) solutions for its UK, German, French, and Italian websites. ReD
solutions will provide real-time service with lower operating costs for the
combination of neural technology and custom velocity. This allows for risk
assessment and the prevention of fraudulent transactions to maximize
legitimate transactions. Opodo online travel service provides consumers
with access to flights from over 500 airlines, over 65,000 hotel properties
and over 7,000 car hire locations worldwide, as well as travel insurance.
With this agreement, Opodo joins ReD’s client list of travel sites
including
Travelocity, Hotwire, Thomas Cook, Harvey World Travel and Travelex.
Amadeus, the travel technology company based in Madrid, Spain, controls
75.4% of the online travel company.

2Checkout.com has partnered with Payoneer to provide its suppliers with the option of receiving their usual weekly payments via a prepaid MasterCard card, instead of a paper check or wire transfer. Operated by Payoneer, 2Checkout.com branded cards are good at any ATM, store or online site that accepts MasterCard worldwide and is particularly appealing to suppliers outside the US, who often face limited, costly options with international payments. Paper checks often require a 30-day hold time, and sometimes are lost or stolen in the mail. Internet payment methods are popular in the US but are not available as cash worldwide. In contrast, the Payoneer-powered 2Checkout.com prepaid card lets suppliers withdraw cash in local currency at ATMs around the world, at more favorable exchange rates than banks.

MoneyExpert.com research has demonstrated that credit card firms are
capitalizing off the more than 4.1 million missed credit card payments over
the past 6 months. This is the equivalent of 694,506 missed payments per
month, 9% of the total credit card bill statements in the UK. Subsequently,
over this period of time, the same consumers missing these payments have
paid up to GBP 50 million in penalties and fees. Additional research shows
that 13% of those between the age of 25 and 34 have missed payments in
the past six months, the most likely demographic, and the highest total
population to miss payments is in the Midlands and Wales at 11%. This is
in opposition to the Scots with 5% of the population missing payments.

Prepaid specialist, NetSpend has hired Adam Chibib to its senior management team as CFO and promoted Steve Reesing to SVP/Corporate Development and Finance. Chibib joins NetSpend from GrowLabs. He previously served as CFO for several technology companies, including TippingPoint Technologies, Waveset Technologies and BroadJump. Reesing will move from the CFO role which he has had for 5 years. The NetSpend “Prepaid Card Network” includes leading consumer brands and companies serving the un-banked and under-banked markets, and its strategic relationships include card issuers, EFT networks and payment card associations.

Xiring has posted a turnover of 8.1 million euro for the first half of
2007, a 38% year-on-year increase, causing a revision to the company’s
annual growth forecast, now projected at 70%. During the same period
in 2006, revenue was at one-fifth of this figure at 2.9 million euros,
mostly generated in the UK and Switzerland. In the healthcare sector,
Xiring reports H1 revenues at 3.9 million euro, up 9% year-on-year.
Also projected for 2007 is the equipment of over 10 million consumers
in Switzerland, UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden. For 2006, the
company posted 12.8 million in revenue. This recent growth is a
reflection of the growing need for security software embedded in
smart card readers for authentication and digital signature in the
banking and healthcare markets.

Motorola announced that the company’s enterprise mobility business is now a member of the PCI Security Standards Council. Motorola’s enterprise WLAN portfolio offers a standard feature set — requiring no additional hardware or software — for a simple, economical solution to PCI compliance. The enterprise WLAN infrastructure products include an integrated firewall between a company’s wireless traffic and the rest of the network, and support the latest encryption and authentication standards available from IEEE, including Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and WPA2. The portfolio includes intrusion detection system (IDS) functionality, allowing retailers to determine what mobile devices are connected to their network. When integrated with the WLAN, Motorola’s wireless IPS solution further enhances the security features to deliver mobile client-based intrusion detection that can disable difficult to detect rogue mobile clients and devices, ensuring maximum up-time and peak network performance. To help retail stores meet PCI compliance, the wireless IPS solution also provides comprehensive compliance reporting and advanced forensics.

Tesco Personal Finance will be expanding the deployment of its Euro ATM
in response to the popularity of the ATM solution. The trial
introduction of
4 initial ATMs will now be increased by 20 allowing for easy access to
Euros
for travelers in the United Kingdom. The Euro ATMs are to be located near
transport hubs at Tesco branches in Ashford, Gatwick, Long Eaton,
Altrincham, Glasgow (Silverburn), Bury, Hemel Hempstead, Chester,
Finchley, Aylesbury, Port Glasgow, Dover, Hatfield, Andover and Newton
Abbott. A further five will be opened over the next few weeks across
Northern Ireland.

Chase has teamed with SeaMiles to launch the “SeaMiles VISA Signature Rewards Card.” Cardholders receive one point per dollar spent on everyday expenses and three points per dollar spent when booking a cruise through SeaMiles or one of its designated travel agents. Cardholders can then redeem their points for free or discounted cruises, stateroom upgrades and companion travel. In addition to offering cruise enthusiasts rewards through the new VISA card, SeaMiles’ newly launched Web site offers the ultimate resource for cruise lovers who want to explore more cruising, manage their SeaMiles account and redeem points. The enhanced Web site provides current SeaMiles members, prospective members and cruise enthusiasts with product information and instant account access.

For the local promotion of their online products and services and to provide
the CyBux Cash Card, ActiveCore Technologies has signed agreements with
Business-Scene Portal(BPS). Citing that 80% of business for small and
medium-
sized operations comes from within a 30 mile radius, local business
portal solutions
is something ActiveCore Technology was seeking for the generation of local
revenue. Portal solutions, such as these, reduce operational expenses,
simplify
application maintenance, improve CRM and customer satisfaction, increase
revenue
streams, and improved knowledge management and collaboration. For
ActiveCore,
the implementation of BPS solutions across organizations and business
units will
generating revenues, improve positioning and overall internal business
processes.
The portal will also help ActiveCore conduct business over the Internet.
CyBux
provides an integrated online payment system across Canada involving
most of the
major banks and credit unions and provides a secure account-based payment
system for use on the Internet.

U.S. Bancorp reported that its second quarter merchant acquiring volume grew more than 12% over 2Q/06 to $62.85 billion, produced from 844,357 merchants. Average credit card loans were up more than 24% year-on-year to $9.1 billion. For the quarter, U.S. Bancorp’s credit card charge-offs were 3.56%, compared to 3.48% in the prior quarter, and 2.72% one-year ago. Payment Services includes consumer and business credit cards, stored-value cards, debit cards, corporate and purchasing card services, consumer lines of credit, ATM processing and merchant processing. Payment Services contributed $259 million of the Company’s net income in the second quarter, a 2.4% increase over the same period of 2006 and a 12.6% increase from the first quarter. All revenue categories benefited from account growth, higher transaction volumes and business expansion initiatives. The growth in total noninterest expense year-over-year primarily reflected new business initiatives, including costs associated with marketing programs and acquisitions, as well as higher collection costs. The increase in the provision for credit losses was driven by an increase in net charge-offs of $36 million year-over-year reflecting portfolio growth, the impact of fully implementing minimum balance payment requirements and the favorable effects in the prior year of changes in bankruptcy laws. For complete details on U.S. Bancorp’s 2Q/07 performance, visit CardData ([www.carddata.com][1]).